The Foreign Service Journal, November 2010

26 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 0 Finding My Father: The Lifelong Quest by an Iwo Jima Marine’s Son to Know the Man Who Was His Father Robert Sidney Pace, iUniverse.com, 2009, $23.95, paperback, 340 pages. Almost every history textbook includes basic facts about the bat- tle of Iwo Jima, but with this memoir, Robert Sidney Pace puts a human face on the event and its aftermath. Born in 1944, Pace grew up knowing only scant de- tails about his father, who died at Iwo Jima six months after his son’s birth. One day, 12-year-old Robert ex- plored his grandparents’ attic and discovered a box of his father’s letters to his mother. He became deter- mined to discover the man behind his shadowy con- ception of his father. Although it revolves around Pace’s journey to un- derstand his father, Finding My Father concerns more than this posthumous relationship. Pace describes the lives of many of his ancestors and relatives — including his great-grandmother, mother and aunt — and chron- icles his own experiences in the Foreign Service. Particularly moving is Pace’s adult rediscovery of the letters he first read as a preteen. Once Pace sees his fa- ther in a realistic light, he is able to come to terms with both the flawed and admirable aspects of his father’s character. Robert Sidney Pace served as an FSO for 30 years, from 1966 to 1996. For almost a decade, he worked ex- clusively on U.S.-Turkish relations, and served twice in Ankara. After retiring from the Foreign Service, Pace served as executive director of the American-Uzbek- istan Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. He and his wife live in Northern Virginia. Arabian Nights and Daze: Living Yemen with the Foreign Service Susan Clough Wyatt, ADST Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series, New Academia/Scarith Books, 2010, $26, hardcover, 302 pages.